Tracking down an American woodcock is not easy, because of the bird’s uncanny camouflage.

”They are exactly the color of these dead London Plane tree leaves. They are kind of cinnamon brown, which is just the color of leaf litter, which is where they live," Gabriel Willow, a naturalist and guide for Bryant Park, said.

A few of the woodcocks have been spotted at Bryant Park in Midtown, Manhattan over the last few weeks, with the birds making a stop during their early spring migration.

“It’s a very unusual bird — it’s in the sandpiper family but it doesn’t live on beaches, it lives in the woods and it eats earthworms and it looks a little bit like a kiwi. It’s very round and has a very long beak, but unlike a kiwi, it can fly,” Willow said.

There are plenty of birds at the popular urban oasis — not just pigeons and house sparrows, common sights around the five boroughs. On a visit to Bryant Park with Willow, a white-throated sparrow was singing, plus there was a gray catbird and a palm warbler on the famous lawn.

The park has birding tours in the spring and fall for migration seasons.

“It’s not just identifying the bird, or ‘you can tell this warbler from that warbler by this wing stripe or whatever,’ but it’s really about the context of New York City, and humanity, and the birds and how they reflect one another,” Willow said. 

Find the full schedule of birding tours here.